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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23258782">Betting On You</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/northofthehouse/pseuds/northofthehouse'>northofthehouse</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>One Thousand Lives [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>EXO (Band)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Boxing, Alternate Universe - Reincarnation, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, M/M, Non-Graphic Violence, Romance</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-03-22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-03-22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-01 06:01:05</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>812</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23258782</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/northofthehouse/pseuds/northofthehouse</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>While Kyungsoo breaks skin, Jongin breaks hearts.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Do Kyungsoo | D.O/Kim Jongin | Kai</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>One Thousand Lives [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1672375</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>19</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Betting On You</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Crossposted on AFF. (Possibly) Also a repeat post to AO3 from my previously orphaned account (I don't remember what I posted and what I didn't). Not plagiary!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Underground they're known to go together, never one without the other, always as a pair: the Beater and the Breaker. To their friends they're simply Kyungsoo and Jongin; yet their world is small, containing no one but themselves, and so they have no friends to call them these names anyway.</p><p>What they call each other is a secret to most. The Beater has been known to emerge from a match victorious and seething, having noticed the looks his Breaker was getting as he fought, and declaring loudly as a greeting but also a claim, "Mine." The Breaker always responds to this with an echoing claim of his own, and even if those who watched the Beater fight watch the pair just as closely, that's usually the only interaction they get.</p><p>Sometimes the Beater's nose is bleeding, sometimes something else is, but there's often blood on his face and washing his teeth. The congratulatory kiss he receives from the Breaker—win or lose—never seems halted or forced, though, and after fights that are particularly gruesome, it's almost like the Breaker kisses hard because he's seen the violence of his lover's face and he likes it.</p><p>"They're going to think you're a sadist," Kyungsoo tells his lover quietly, once away from prying eyes that unearth weakness for current interest and future use.</p><p>Jongin shushes the fighter with a click of his tongue and a soft look, reaching behind where Kyungsoo is seated on the bathroom counter in order to dampen a worn rag he keeps around just for this purpose.</p><p>"Let them," he tells his boyfriend with a crooked grin and a crinkling eye smile that makes everyone swoon—he's known as the Breaker for a reason. Jongin wipes gently at Kyungsoo's face, taking his time to clean carefully without possibly exacerbating any of his lover's injuries. "Besides," he adds with a chuckle and a naughty glint in his eye, "You were so good today that I had to show them—show you—that I was proud."</p><p>Kyungsoo winces as Jongin's cloth brushes against a split lip and whimpers, too, when his lover's mouth descends to press against Kyungsoo's own. He feels Jongin's tongue swipe across the cut and moans because it hurts yet he's still shivering beneath his taller boyfriend's standing body and leaning into the kiss.</p><p>They work best like this—a little pain mixed with heaps of pleasure. It's why they call Kyungsoo the Beater; why he's so good at what he does. He's a chaebol child, second son of parents who abandoned him for other people a long time ago and only recently passed away to abandon him for real, so he doesn't need the money he often wins for others; actually, he and his Breaker don't even bet.</p><p>No, the Beater fights because he loves it, and because he know that Jongin loves it even more.</p><p>The Breaker would fight if he could; if a long battle with leukemia as a teenager hadn't left his body beautiful, but more broken than it looked, even as an adult now more than ten years later. And so Kyungsoo fights not just for himself but for his lover who sees the matches and cannot participate, yet remains steadfastly by his Beater's side through it all.</p><p>In that Jongin fights his own matches, not against other boxers but against the crowd. He stands tall and slim, cool facade a delicious contrast with his darker skin, always impeccably dressed yet in constant possession of a certain roughness that is usually only found within the boxers themselves. The Breaker is not the Beater's trainer—he does not coach Kyungsoo through rounds, nor does he wipe away sweat or offer water and temporary first aid—he is merely a supporter, but one of the first line, ready and waiting for the match to be over and for his lover to return. Jongin has no greater joy in life than Kyungsoo, and watching his lover fight is a close second.</p><p>It's why they call Jongin the Breaker; why he knows of the name but doesn't understand it. As Kyungsoo enraptures him, Jongin enraptures them. While Kyungsoo fights, Jongin belongs to the spectators as a sort of unattainable part of that underground world with all of the vicious beauty and without all the gore. Even then, though, the crowd doesn't own him, and that's why he's the Breaker and not merely the Beauty, because even then Jongin is Kyungsoo's.</p><p>Regardless of the setting or the title, of whether Kyungsoo wins or loses, of the way Jongin feels hungry eyes or ignores them, they are a pair that goes together. They belong, not to boxing or to leukemia or to chaebol parents with no right to expectations or to the crowd, but to each other, and each other alone.</p><p>The Beater and the Breaker. Kyungsoo and Jongin. <em>Mine</em>.</p>
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